THE SCREEN; 'Ghost Breakers,' a Comic Thriller, at Paramount-- Spy Pictures at the Rialto and Palace

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It looks as though Paramount has really discovered something: it has found the fabled formula for making an audience shriek with laughter and fright at one and (as the barkers say) the simultaneous time. And apparently the necessary contents for such a valuable witch's broth are nothing more esoteric than a thoroughly haunted house, a web of tangled intrigue with some sort of treasure at the end, and Paulette Goddard and Bob Hope to grope their terrified way through and to same. It worked out very nicely in "The Cat and the Canary" last year, and it is working quite as nicely—and even more amusingly, in fact—in "The Ghost Breakers," which came yesterday to the Paramount.The mixing is equally simple. A hand reaches out of the darkness or a sinister figure appears through the gloom; Miss Goddard casts her fear-shattered self into Mr. Hope's trembling arms, and he, witty fellow that he is, pops out a withering gag. Some are bad enough to throw any spook that ever lived, but most of them are lively snappers which chase the creepiest chill with a laugh. As a consequence, the picture leaps nimbly along from gag to gag, never making much sense but always making merry.The story in such a case is, obviously, incidental. Miss Goddard, it seems, has inherited a haunted castle in Cuba, and Mr. Hope goes with her to claim it because he happened to get locked in a trunk. Also in the party is Mr. Hope's Negro valet, Willie Best, and the three have the usual encounters with other parties in quest of the castle's inevitable buried treasure. Next to Mr. Hope, Willie is the best thing in the show—a slightly accelerated Stepin Fetchit who knows all he wants to know about zombies and haunted castles. "You look like a black out in a blackout," Mr. Hope informs him during a moment of total darkness. Willie's agonized croak is an eloquent response. And Miss Goddard, who hasn't a great deal to do, looks very beautiful doing it.Not many pictures can make your goose-pimpled sides shake with laughter, but this one does—or should.

THE GHOST BREAKERS; screen play by Walter De Leon; based on a play by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard; directed by George Marshall; produced by Arthur Hornblow Jr. for Paramount. At the Paramount.Larry Laurence . . . . . Bob HopeMary Carter . . . . . Paulette GoddardGeoff Montgomery . . . . . Richard CarlsonParada . . . . . Paul LukasAlex . . . . . Willie BestHavez . . . . . Padro de CordobaRamon Mederos . . . . . Anthony QuinnRaspy Kelly . . . . . Tom DuganMartin . . . . . Lloyd CorriganFrenchy . . . . . Paul FixMother Zombie . . . . . Virginia BrissacZombie . . . . . Noble JohnsonA new spy scare hit Broadway yesterday with the arrival at the Palace of "Murder in the Air." However, Ronald Reagan and the Warners' FBI agents have the situation well in hand. After some sixty minutes of highly incredible melodramatic incident, the government's prized "inertia projector" is rescued from foreign hands and the saboteurs are either killed off or jailed. (The "inertia projector" is an instrument which fouls electric current at the source; its amazing practicality is illustrated when it is focused on the plane in which the enemy agents attempt to flee the country.)Mr. Reagan, who had seen service previously with the Warners' FBI force, handles his role of counter-espionage agent with the customary daring. Eddie Foy Jr. has a few good comical moments, and Lya Lys of the golden tresses makes an attractive Mata Hari. The screen play by Raymond Schrock is compact, if not "original," and the direction by Lewis Seiler is swiftly paced. All of which tends to make "Murder in the Air" acceptable program fare.

At the PalaceMURDER IN THE AIR; original screen play by Raymond Schrock; directed by Lewis Seiler for Warner Brothers.Brass Bancroft . . . . . Ronald ReaganSaxby . . . . . John LitelHilda Riker . . . . . Lya LysJoe Garvey . . . . . James StephensonGabby Watters . . . . . Eddie Foy Jr.Doctor Finchley . . . . . Robert WarwickRumford . . . . . Victor ZimmermanAdmiral Winfield . . . . . William GouldCommander Wayne . . . . . Kenneth HarlanHotel Clerk . . . . . Frank WilcoxGeorge Hayden . . . . . Owen KingJohn Kramer . . . . . Dick RichOtto . . . . . Charles BrokawDolly . . . . . Helen LyndNow that the exhibitors have been enjoined from using the name "Fifth Column Squad" and the film in question has opened at the Rialto as "Spies of the Air," one wonders what all the fuss and feathers was about. As a record of infidelity, both marital and military, it frequently gathers suspense through a suggestive use of the camera; there are shots of feet stealthily padding down a stair, a baleful face at the window, a secret meeting at a foggy crossroad. But if the camera sets the mood, the gaucheries of the plot and the awkward editing dispel it. The result is generally anticlimactic.It involves as usual the disappearance of secret plans from a British airplane testing field and laboratory, a problem somewhat complicated by a liaison between a test pilot and the wife of the designer, as careless a pair of illicit lovers as the screen has shown recently. And out of the web of deceit, blackmail and murder only Scotland Yard could ferret the fantastic solution.In the direction, David MacDonald has purloined a page from the book of Alfred Hitchcock, but without the latter's sense of timing or knack of pointing a climax. The performances by Barry Barnes and Joan Marion as the lovers and Roger Livesey as the husband are competent, but so heavily British in accent as to be inarticulate. All of them would have been vastly improved by a simple lesson in correct English enunciation.

A version of this review appears in print on July 4, 1940 of the National edition with the headline: THE SCREEN; 'Ghost Breakers,' a Comic Thriller, at Paramount-- Spy Pictures at the Rialto and Palace. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe